A less government conservative Republican from Livingston County, MI
Opinions on this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Livingston County Republican Party.
Chairman of LCRP since January 2013

Saturday, May 26, 2012

MI-11 - Fubar

I'm absolutely stunned at this.A MIRS report's been circulated just about everywhere. MIRS is a good source too, so this isn't looking good at all. McCotter may be ousted from Congress without even an election.

Republican sources tell MIRS tonight that there is growing movement
within the Republican Party to recruit Attorney David TROTT, a Bingham
Farms attorney, to run in the 11th Congressional District as a write-in
if U.S. Rep. Thad McCOTTER (R-Livonia) is unable to make the ballot.

Trott is the co-founder and president of Bingham Farms-based Trott
& Trott, one of the nation's largest law firms handling residential
default procedures.

Trott, a long-time party activist, had flirted with running for Michigan Republican Party state chair in 2004.

While there is no official word on whether Trott or anyone else would
be interested, Republicans have actively searched for candidates after
noon today since they were first alerted that McCotter had "woefully
fewer" than the 1,000 valid signatures needed to make the ballot.

McCotter turned in 2000 signatures according to the Secretary of State's office. Assuming that's true, how in the hell did 1001 of them get fubared? How? If this is remotely true, I'm flabbergasted. This is after redistricting and other possible candidates gave him a huge gift. Peters is running against Clarke and Lawrence. Marty Knollenberg long said he wasn't going to run if McCotter did, and is running for Oakland Treasurer. Mike Kowall was going to run and backed out. Kowall especially has to be kicking himself.

The question is now what. Either McCotter survives the petition challenges, or he's gone. If he's in, he's the favorite to win. If he's disqualified, then it's going to be real interesting. What happens is this:

On the dems side, there's a race between Bill Roberts (D-Redford) and Syed Taj (D-Canton).

On the GOP side, Kerry Bentivolio, assuming his signatures clear, will be the frontrunner if McCotter is not on the ballot. McCotter could run as a write-in, as could Trott. In order for Trott or McCotter or anyone else to be the nominee, he'd have to beat whoever is on the ballot. Like Bentivolio. While that could and in fact sometimes DOES happen, it's rare in a congressional district. It's rare even in a township. People would have to write in Trott or McCotter in not just Bloomfields and Livonia, but everywhere else.

I think the Republican establishment here may need to swallow some pride and save its resources to help Bentivolio if McCotter gets KO'ed at the signature level. McCotter in 2008 got 40,000+ votes while being unopposed. In the primary. Even 20,000 write-ins is a very tough undertaking, even for a guy with the resources Trott or McCotter would have. There's a very good chance that Bentivolio will be the nominee if McCotter loses the petition battle. If that's the case, the establishment needs to ask themselves this. Do they want Speaker Pelosi back or not? Bentivolio is a strong tea party candidate and a bit of a libertarian republican. I think he'd be similar to Justin Amash in his views and voting. Instead of floating Trott, they should be grateful that someone bailed out the party if McCotter's out. We can do a lot worse than Bentivolio, like Bill Roberts.

4 comments:

There's a lot of things that can come from a party (be it NRCC, MIGOP, 11CD, Wayne County, or Oakland County) pushed write in, and none I can see good.

What I see from this is a probable waste of time, resources, and money if this happens. Poor tactics chasing a Hail Mary Pass.

It's probably going to take at least 25,000+ write ins from Trott (if he runs) or McCotter (if he runs as a write-in) to have any chance to beat Bentivolio, and I don't think that would be enough. A lot of people are going to vote for whatever republican is on the ballot for that position. In addition, unlike some states, there's no write-in stickers here.

That's not counting a lot of the tea party, RLC, and Campaign for Liberty supporters who would likely be voting for Bentivolio anyway because they know him and like him. That's not counting those who would refuse to support McCotter for the campaign blunder.

If McCotter is off the ballot, Bentivolio probably has a 70% chance to win against McCotter or Kowall write-in, and 85% chance to win against Trott write in, because only insiders and some locals know who Trott is. I've actually met Bentivolio once. I've never met Trott, although I know of him.

Parties need to stay out of the primary, let the process take its course, and support the winner of that primary. Bentivolio did the work needed to get his name on the ballot. He's not Allen Carlson, Roy Schmidt, Bruce Hawley, or Tom DeWault either. Parties need to save the resources in case Bentivolio does win the primary, which is likely (Assuming McCotter is off the ballot), and help out the guy who may for all we know be the deciding vote for the speaker and committee chairs.

Bill Roberts is a Lyndon LaRouche guy. He's not getting elected to Jack! The Muslim guy will win the demorat primary. If Roberts did win the Republican would be a mortal lock in November no matter who it is.

I think Taj would be favored, but that will be an interesting primary if Taj takes it for granted, especially with all the hype going to be Bentivolio vs write in Thad.

I'd like to think that if Roberts is the nominee that Bentivolio or John Smith for that matter would be a 65-35 lock. I think the GOP is favored to win this district in any case on paper. The dems aren't running their best chances here, which would be Tim Melton or Dian Slavens.

I don't think Taj or Roberts are A team candidates, but I'm never going to underestimate an opponent. A Congressman Syed Taj would be bad. A Congressman Bill Roberts would be worse. I never thought Thad McCotter would have signature issues either.